Unauthorized copying in decentralized networks using peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing has become a major concern to owners of copyrighted material. Unlike a centralized network, decentralization makes it commercially impractical to pursue all copyright violators in court. This is because decentralization requires filing lawsuits against virtually millions of client computer operators instead of only one party operating a central computer.
Accordingly, copyright owners seek other methods for protecting their copyrighted material, such as blocking, diverting or otherwise impairing the unauthorized distribution of their copyrighted works on a publicly accessible decentralized or P2P file trading network. In order to preserve the legitimate expectations and rights of users of such a network, however, it is desirable that copyright owners do not alter, delete, or otherwise impair the integrity of any computer file or data lawfully residing on the computer of a file trader.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,732,180 describes one method of interdicting unauthorized copying in a decentralized network using decoy files. In the method described, the network is scanned for media to be protected. When such media is found, decoy files are distributed through controlled nodes in the network so as to reduce the likelihood of a successful download. The number of controlled nodes in this case is determined so as to satisfy a specified effective decoy ratio related to the number of nodes offering decoy versions of the media and the total number of nodes offering real versions of the media.
The cost and advanced technology to implement and maintain such a system to interdict unauthorized copying of protected files (i.e., files individually containing content that is to be protected against unauthorized copying) may be prohibitive, however, for many content owners (e.g., the copyright owners of such content). To satisfy the needs of these and other owners of the content of files, a copy protection services industry has developed in recent years. Interfaces to and information provided by such service companies, however, are generally crude and/or difficult to customize to the individual needs and/or preferences of content owners. This is especially apparent where a content owner may desire to define different levels of protection among its owned content, in order to balance the cost of protection against any financial benefit of such protection.